![Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Utilization of these energy sources, together with the energy used by humans from net primary production, is now approaching the entire energy available to the global ecosystem before human intervention [Barnosky, [1]]. Key to colours: dark blue = coal; dark brown = oil; green = natural gas; purple = nuclear; light blue = hydro; orange brown = biomass (e.g. plants, trees). Data source from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8936](https://i1.wp.com/energyskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/human-population-growth.jpg?w=640)
Figure 1. Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Utilization of these energy sources, together with the energy used by humans from net primary production, is now approaching the entire energy available to the global ecosystem before human intervention [Barnosky, [1]]. Key to colours: dark blue = coal; dark brown = oil; green = natural gas; purple = nuclear; light blue = hydro; orange brown = biomass (e.g. plants, trees). Data source from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8936 Figure 1. Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750.
Preface. A few key paragraphs from the article below:
Humans are producing and consuming resources at a geologically unprecedented rate – a rate that needs to be maintained to continue the high level and complexity of the current [fossil-fuel based] civilization. This high consumption has formed a ‘striking new pattern’ in the planet’s global energy flow.
It is without precedent to have a single species appropriating a quarter of the net primary biological production of the planet and to become effectively the top predator both on land and at sea.
Some of the massive effects humans are having on the planet include mining phosphorus and fixing nitrogen to make fertilizer, burning hundreds of millions of years of fossil fuels, and directing this increased productivity that is well beyond natural levels towards animals re-engineered for our consumption.
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Williams, M., et al. March 14, 2016. The Anthropocene: a conspicuous stratigraphical signal of anthropogenic changes in production and consumption across the biosphere. Earth’s Future.
Humans are producing and consuming resources at a geologically unprecedented rate – a rate that needs to be maintained to continue the high level and complexity of the current [fossil-fuel based] civilization. This high consumption has formed a ‘striking new pattern’ in the planet’s global energy flow.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
